The LP has been around for well over 30 years. Their political successes amount to precious little. Given the current political & social realities in America, voting for them may feel good, but it amounts to tilting at windmills.
Don't misunderstand: On matters of principal & policy, I agree with them to a huge degree.
However, as a political party they have some serious problems.
For one, it has been badly mismanaged, and in my experience most people who vote LP have a very unrealistic and undoable view of how they can fix things.
The party itself, and so far as I can tell, most of it's members are focused on winning the presidency. This is foolish at best.
Stipulating that they could actually win -and operating as they have been, they can not- they are not going to get the results they expect. I've read what they claim for 20 years. They think that by winning the presidency, their candidate can simply undo all the cabinets, end the income tax, end the federal drug laws, etc.
Yet, by their very principals, the president is limited in power, as set fort in the COTUS. He ca NOT do these things on his own. He requires congress to pass legislation and send it to him to sign.
However, congress is composed of 2 parties, and neither one of them is the LP. There is not a single person elected to federal office as a Libertarian. Even Ron Paul, a self-proclaimed Libertarian, won his office by running as a Republican. His ballot had an R by his name, not an L.
Assuming a LP president, both parties will be scheming & plotting on how to regain the White House in the very next presidential election. They will not be concerned with carrying his water, they will want him despised & discredited, easily voted out.
Most people likely to vote LP now are republican voters. So LP votes will not draw from both parties, they will draw from republican votes. A large vote for the LP candidate will not elect him, but may well hand the election to the democrat.
The LP, for whatever reason, has demonstrated repeatedly that they simply will NOT run a serious campaign. If they want to effect change, they must first win office. To do that, they must campaign effectively. They must find & run serious candidates, people who the typical voter can take seriously. They must spend some serious money on the campaign, do some actual real work to get their name & positions out there.
They do none of these things.
If they want to achieve their goals of change, of returning us to the core laws of the constitution & bill of rights, they have to quit wasting their time, moeny & energies on the now unobtainable presidency, and instead draft & implement workable strategies to win -WIN, not run for & have a good time doing it- seats in the US House & Senate. They must identify vulnerable seats that may be won, due to redistricting, death, retirement, etc, and go after them. They need to get not one, but over time, many people elected, on the LP ticket, and establish an actual public record in office, for their votes & legislation.
Assuming people like their performance, they will then be enabled to win more, eventuall the presidency. Under such curcumstances, that president would then have a power block in congress to push the agenda and things could be done.
I am a Libertarian. But due to their track record, of pragmatic necessity, I generally vote republican. Until they get their **** together & get serious, it's gonna stay that way.
Sometimes you don't vote FOR the lesser of 2 evils; you vote AGAINST the worst of 2.
If you vote for someone who has zero chance of winning, it may feel good. But in reality all you have accomplished is to opt out of choosing between the 2 real choices and allowed everyone else to choose for you.
That sucks, but that's politics in America in 2004.